


Taboo

by intangible_girl



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Daemon Touching, F/M, Gen, Some Fluff, Tony!Feels, feels all around, some sexual content, some violence, steve!feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:38:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intangible_girl/pseuds/intangible_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Touching another person's daemon is the greatest taboo- and the greatest intimacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taboo

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11065.html?thread=23465017#t23465017) prompt at Avengerkink.

There was a lot about war that Steve hadn’t expected, and most of it was unpleasant. But the worst thing, if you could pick a worst thing about war (which was a depressingly morbid exercise Steve didn’t often let himself indulge in), was the way nothing was sacred, not even your own daemon. It was one thing for two daemons to fight while their humans did battle, but in the chaotic press of combat sometimes it was daemon against human and that’s just the way it was, no way around it. War left nothing sacred, not even if you were the good guys.

The first time his Salima tore out a man’s throat with her bare teeth Steve leaned over and threw up, and Sal stood stiffly beside him, muzzle red, looking shocky. He barely registered the cloud of golden dust that exploded out from where the man’s daemon had been, and even though he knew he had to keep moving, that there were people waiting for him and he was liable to get shot if he didn’t get out of there soon, he stood and stared for a good minute and a half at the ruined throat, the man’s face completely untouched right above unholy gore, a sight, he knew, that would be etched perfectly in his mind for the rest of his life even if he lived to be ninety years old.

Finally Sal nudged at his legs, not looking him in the eye, and he took her meaning and moved on.

 

* * *

 

Bruce didn’t know how actual doctors stood it. He could stitch up someone’s intestines or treat boils and sores without problem, but on the rare occasion when he was called upon to touch someone’s daemon? He almost couldn’t make himself move his arms to do it. Kensia told him sharply that he was being silly, that it was alright to do this in the line of duty, that he was _expected_ to do it, but that hardly made it easier. Sometimes he just flat out refused, and one time he even made Kensia pick up a man’s butterfly daemon in her mouth, after which she refused to speak to him for hours. And maybe the strength of his aversion was a little silly considering the circumstances, but, well.

Well, it wasn’t like Kensia hadn’t been there when they’d had that particular taboo beaten into them, so her exasperation wasn’t very generous either.

It never stopped being a sore spot with them, but it did become a moot point after Manhattan, so that was something.

 

* * *

 

“What a fine—” Thor began, smiling openly, reaching his hand out and the gesture was friendly for all that it was wrong wrong _wrong_ and Jane watched in slow motion as the hand nearly made it all the way to the black and white fur of the waitress’s dog daemon before the poor thing flinched, hard, and scurried away ungracefully. Thor blinked, hand still hovering in the air as though something might magically appear beneath it, and then he frowned, deeply, and lowered it slowly.

“I apologize,” he said, sincerely, as though he hadn’t almost just… _touched_ … someone’s daemon in the middle of a crowded diner, as though he’d accidentally stepped on someone’s foot or ate the last donut. “I meant no offense.”

“He’s—not from around here,” Jane awkwardly told the waitress, who looked ready to faint, and she was beginning to believe it.

 

* * *

 

 

Her job was an art form, and Natasha was the very best at what she did.

Seduction was only a small part of it, however; and, really, sexual persuasion was only a very small part of seduction. She had picked up the code name Black Widow for a reason, yes, but by now she was so good at her job that she hadn’t needed to actually sleep with a mark in years. Her go-to strategy towards the end of her freelance career had been to stroke, caress, kiss, or otherwise fondle the mark’s daemon, and she was actually rather proud of how many people (men, it was mostly men) had let her do it voluntarily—or she had been. Now it was just more red in her ledger, she having been briefed on her entrance to SHIELD on things like ability to consent, which had done perhaps more to reorder her world than Clint’s nonchalant offer of a job accompanied by a winning smile and a nocked arrow. She hadn’t known it was _wrong_ , before, just that it wasn’t done. That applied to many things about her former life and former ethics, but most especially to this.

So when Clint’s Daira casually hopped up on her shoulder a few months after her ‘recruitment’ and both Daira and Clint went on as though nothing was amiss, it meant so much more than it would have only months before, because she understood what this meant to someone brought up as Clint had been. She could see it as the precious gift it was, instead of a notch in her record. She locked eyes with Vanya, who nodded slightly and curled up next to Clint, cautiously, but willingly enough. The man turned and smiled at her, bright and warm, and she smiled back, hers more tentative but no less genuine for it.

 

* * *

 

“Mmm,” Pepper moans decadently, and Tony would be grinning if his mouth weren’t hanging slackly open. He knows his eyes are wide, his pupils blown, but he’s looking at the most erotic thing he’s ever seen in his life, and considering this is him he’s talking about, that’s saying something.

His Teresa pulls off of Pepper, and curls up with Matthias as though she’s shy, though she’s grinning like Tony can’t yet. Matthias licks a long stripe up her back and she wiggles in pleasure. Tony can feel it, the sensation going straight to his cock, but it’s only the cherry on top of what he just witnessed. Pepper takes a moment to get her breath back, and then opens her eyes, looking at him languidly.

“I bet,” she says, sitting up, “you did that to all the girls.”

She’s smiling, and her words are playful, seductive, but Tony’s stomach swoops and he can feel Teresa go still underneath Matthias.

“I’ve, um,” he says, and Pepper blinks a few times, eyes regaining their focus. “I’ve never let anyone touch her before,” he says, speaking the words like dropping coins into a fountain. They are precious, but he has to let them go without fuss or hesitation or he never will at all. Pepper stills, and for a moment everyone’s frozen. Then Matthias, who is very aggressive in bed (who knew?), practically _mounts_ Teresa even though their anatomies are all wrong for it and daemons don’t really do that, biting her neck possessively and everything, and Tony lets out a thready moan like it was being pulled from him and Pepper reels him in for a slow, warm kiss that’s hardly sexual at all, though under the circumstances that only adds to the heat pooling in his groin.

When she pulls back and Teresa’s pleasurable squeaking has died down Pepper turns and beckons for her, and she steps forward carefully. Pepper runs a hand along her back, firm and smooth and delicious, and she looks at Tony and he sees the gratitude in her eyes, the love, and it’s too much, he’s never had anyone _do_ that before, and he’s coming without a hand on him, on pure sensation and feeling alone, and he is in awe of the red-haired goddess in front of him who keeps stroking Teresa and holding his hand like he hadn’t just had an orgasm all over her.

“I love you,” she whispers, and this time, for the first time, he can say it back.


End file.
